Eruption (The Hunted Series Book 3) (27 page)

I wasn't sure when my tears stopped. It was hard to tell in
the rain. But eventually I was numb. All James had to do was ask me to stay. If
there was anything I could hold onto I would. But he wanted me to leave. I
wasn't the one that needed saving. He did. He needed someone stronger than me.
Better than me.

I kept walking, like I knew where I was going. But I was
completely lost. The truth was, I had nowhere to go. I hadn't come from
nothing, but I felt like I was nothing now. Nothing without him. I just needed
to get to the airport. I needed to get as far away from New York as two
thousand dollars would take me.

A car beeping pulled me out of my thoughts. Water splashed
onto my legs as it came to a stop next to me on the road. I didn't recognize
the car. I picked up my pace. A car door slammed.

"Penny!" Rob called after me.

"Rob?" I turned around. "What are you doing
here? I asked you to take care of..."

"Penny, get in the car."

I had never seen Rob upset before. But he was clearly
distressed. "I don't need your help, Rob. I'm fine."

"You're walking in the middle of a storm without a coat,
or umbrella, or...shoes?" He looked at my high heels in my hand.
"What the hell are you doing?"

"Please, just leave me alone."

"And you're clearly lost. The city is that way," he
said and pointed over his shoulder. "I'm taking you home. So, get in the
car."

"Rob, James broke up with me. I don't have a home to go
to. And I'm not your problem anymore." That's what James had said to me.
That I was no longer his problem. That extended to his family too.

"Even if you two did break up, that doesn't mean that
we're not still friends. Get in the car, Penny."

"I don't need James' handouts."

"I came after you by myself. Just get in the car.
Please."

"How did you find me?"

"You have a GPS in your phone."

"James tracks me?"

"He worries about you."

"He's not worried about me anymore."

"That's not true. He loves you. You know that."

"Did he say that to you?" I let a small spark of
hope run through me.

Rob slowly shook his head. The spark died before it had even
lit. "Please, Penny. Just let me drive you wherever it is you're going.
He'll want to know that you're safe."

He doesn't care if I'm safe or not.
He wants me to
disappear.
"Will you take me to the airport?" I pressed my lips
together. This was it. I was really going.

"If that's what you really want, then yes."

I had no idea where I was. I didn't want James' help, but I
needed it. Maybe I was a nuisance. He'd be rid of me soon enough, though.
"Okay." I walked around to the passenger's side of the car and got
in. My wet legs squeaked against the leather seats. I wasn't even sure they'd
let me on a plane like this. "I'm sorry, I feel like..."

"It's fine, Penny. You know, you've been walking in the
opposite direction of the city," Rob said as he started the car. "The
J.F.K. airport is 45 minutes away without traffic. So, it'll be at least an
hour." He gave me a smile as he pulled the car away from the curb. There
was always traffic in New York. But his joke didn't make me laugh.

It would have taken me forever to walk to the airport.
"Thanks, Rob. For helping me when you didn't have to."

Rob shook his head. "Penny, I care about you. You're
like a little sister to me. An annoying little sister who likes putting herself
in danger. What were you thinking?"

I looked out the window. We really were in the middle of nowhere.
It was strange how once you left the city, you couldn't tell you were close to
it. I didn't want to disappear. I just wanted to see something familiar.
"I wasn't thinking. I just...it's not like I have anything worth mugging
anyway."

Rob didn't laugh.

"Can you take me to Newark instead?"

He looked over at me, but didn't say anything.

"Rob, did you go see him?"

He nodded.

I looked down at my hands. That's why Rob wasn't joking
around with me. He thought I was a horrible person too. "It's not what you
think."

"So you didn't steal 20 million dollars from James and
give it to your ex?"

"I think I actually did do that. But I didn't know
that's what I was doing. And I didn't have a choice."

"And you told James that?"

"I tried to. Rob, I..." I put my face in my hands
and started crying again. "He doesn't believe me. I thought he trusted me.
I thought...I mean, we were going to get married. It was all a lie. He never
loved me."

"I believe you. I know you wouldn't hurt him. But he's
hurting anyway. He's..." his voice trailed off. "You need to go talk
to him..."

"Did you leave him alone?"

"Mason's with him."

I nodded my head. "I can't see him, Rob. He made it very
clear that he doesn't want anything to do with me."

"That's not what it looked like to me. It looked like he
was fucked up and needed you more than ever."

"If you're going to make me feel guilty, you can just
let me off here. James kicked me out. Do you think I don't want to be there for
him? That's not fair, Rob. You don't know the whole story. And he might need
me, but he sure as hell doesn't want me."

"Okay. Newark it is then." He put on his turn
signal and drove toward the highway. He put his hand on my shoulder. "How
about you start from the beginning?"

***

The elevator doors opened into Rob's apartment. He had
changed a lot of things from when it used to be James'. James and I had visited
a lot, but not that recently. I ran my hand along the marble countertop.

Rob seemed to believe everything I had told him. He was
wondering why I hadn't come to him sooner, since Isabella had never mentioned
going to James' friends. And I didn't have an answer. It all happened so fast.

"If you want to take a shower, just use the master. I
don't have any shampoo or anything in the guest bathroom."

"Actually, a shower sounds great." My clothes were
still a little damp. "Do you have something I could change into after
while my dress dries?"

"Yeah."

I followed him into the master bedroom. The bed was in a
different spot and the sheets were black instead of white. It hadn't felt like
a bachelor pad when James lived here, but it did now.

"Here," Rob said and tossed me a pair of black yoga
pants and a white tank top. "Those should fit."

I looked up at him. "I don't even want to know why you
have these clothes."

"Women sleep over a lot. I'm a snuggler." He
shrugged. "They leave things."

"I never pictured you as the type of guy that let women
spend the night."

"I'm letting you spend the night."

I laughed. "Fair enough. Thanks for these." I
walked into the master bathroom and closed the door. I tried not to picture
James in here with me as I turned on the water. Or as I lathered up my body
with soap. I tried not to picture him pushing me against the cold tiles.
Fuck.
Luckily Rob didn't used the same body wash as James or I probably would have
lost it again. I quickly got out and dried off.

Looking through Rob's drawers for a comb reminded me of doing
the same when it was James' place. When I was a student and he was my
professor. I loved spending the night with him. I loved the way he made me
feel. For the first time in my life, I had felt alive. I looked at my
reflection in the mirror and then quickly looked away. I didn't want to think
about him. Especially if he was back home upset about something I didn't really
do. Or worse, getting over it with Mason's help. Just like Mason had helped him
find a great location for a bachelor party. James cheated on me.

I found a comb and quickly brushed out my hair before getting
dressed. The outfit fit perfectly. It was good that Rob hooked up with tons of
random women. I hung up my wet clothes and towel to dry and made my way out of
the bathroom. I kept my arms folded in front of my chest. My bra had been too
wet to put back on and I didn't want to have to ask Rob for one.

He looked up at me as I came out of his bedroom, and then he
immediately looked away. "Do you want something to drink?" He opened
up the fridge. "I think I have a bottle of wine somewhere..."

"A beer is fine." I sat down cross-legged on his
couch.

Rob laughed. "And that's why I love you." He
grabbed two beers from the fridge and popped off the tops. He handed one to me
before sitting down next to me on the couch. "Are you hungry or
anything?"

"No, I'm good." We had gotten some fast food at a
drive through on the way here. I wasn't hungry then either, but I had eaten a
few fries.

"You're seriously turning down Grottos?"

I laughed. "I'm not hungry."

"Geez, you are upset."

I took a sip of my beer. "Yeah. You know, this might be
the last time we ever get to hang out."

"James gets me in the breakup, huh?"

"As his brother, yeah, I think so. And Mason and
therefore Bee. And Matt. And Jen."

"If he lets you go, he's a fucking idiot."

"He already did."

Rob shook his head. "James still wants to marry you. You
have to know that."

"He said he never wanted to see me again."

"Because he was drunk and upset and..."

"He still said it." I took another sip of my beer.
"He said it was only ever about sex."

Rob shook his head again. "He showed me the pictures
that you threw at him. That one of him having sex was from college. He hasn't
had a beard that long since he was strung out on drugs. He was a dumb
kid."

Oh.
That made sense. But it didn't change anything.
"He was probably the same age there as I was when I met him."

"But you had your shit together."

"I didn't. I fell in love with my professor."

Rob laughed.

"What about the other pictures? The ones of
Rachel?"

Rob stared at me for a second before speaking. "My
parents were awful to James growing up. You knew that, right? They ignored me
and Jen. We definitely got the better end of the deal. But James was the
prodigal son. Nothing he did was ever good enough. Living like that...it's a
lot of pressure."

I was an only child. I knew what it felt like to want to
please your parents. I was always worried that I would disappoint them. But
they had never pressured me to do anything in particular. They always seemed
proud of me no matter what I did. "I don't know that much about his
childhood. He doesn't really talk about it."

"He wanted to play football. Did you know that? That was
his dream."

I shook my head. He had never told me that. He loved watching
the Giants games with Rob. That was one of their favorite things to do
together. But I never knew he wanted to be playing. "He never told
me."

"My parents made him quit the team in high school
because they thought it was a waste of time. They had this way of sucking out
all the joy from his life. Like they found pleasure in it. No matter what James
did, he wasn't good enough for them. He was always wrong. They beat him down. I
played baseball in high school and college and Jen was into drama club. And
James had to watch us do whatever we wanted to. I think that hurt him too. It
wasn't just that my parents didn't let him do the stuff he loved, it's that they
always made it seem like they liked him the least, you know? By not letting him
do anything he wanted. But they got what they wanted, I guess. A genius techie
who doesn't speak to them. Their loss right?" Rob set his empty beer down
on the coffee table.

I remembered the first speech that James had given in my Comm
class. He had said he had wished he could be more like his sister...fearless.
"Didn't he ever stand up to them?" I thought about the paper I had
seen in his copy of Harry Potter. He was trying to get emancipated.

"Yeah. With Rachel. I lied to you the other day when you
asked about Rachel. It wasn't just young love. He was obsessed with her. I
think she felt the same about him. They spent every second they could together.
So of course, my parents wanted to ruin that too. Even after they told him he
had to choose between her and them paying for college, he held onto that
relationship. They still talked in private. He promised her that once he got
enough money, they could be together again. But then halfway through college,
she just stopped talking to him. She refused to take his calls. She said it was
over, without any explanation. That's when he really lost it. I think he saw a
way out of his life with her. An escape or something. I don't really know. He
was a mess. He just snapped. He hit rock bottom. He gave up on life."

That wasn't the story James had told me. He said their
relationship had stopped when he had to choose between her and college.
"And when he went to see her last week?"

"Did my parents really try to pay you five million
dollars to walk away from James?"

I was surprised that James had told him that.
"Yeah."

Rob shook his head. "I don't think James realized how
far they'd go to get what they want."

I shrugged. "What does this have to do with him visiting
Rachel?"

"When you told James that they tried to pay you off...he
thought maybe the same thing had happened with her. He thought they had paid
her off too. That's why she suddenly didn't care about him anymore."

I remembered James' reaction when I had told him about his
parents trying to pay me off. It kind of looked like he was realizing something
for the first time. I thought he was just realizing how evil his parents really
were. But he was realizing why Rachel abandoned him. "Why wouldn't he tell
me that?"

"I don't know. He only went to go see her to confirm his
suspicion. That was it. It wasn't because he still has feelings for her. He
would never cheat on you, Penny."